The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: We’re defined by our choices
By Liam O'Leary
The Walking Dead has returned and though it was sad, it also showed us that, even in a zombie apocalypse, we still have choices.
Our lives are defined by our choices. Where we go. What we do. What we say. Everything, one way or another, comes down to our choices.
It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that this applies just as well in a zombie apocalypse. What we do, how we act, who we become, are all determined by the choices we make.
For example: How violent we are in the apocalypse? That’s our choice. Sure, we will need to defend ourselves and our groups from hostiles, but, if we start killing people for no reason, we can’t say we were “forced” to.
No. We won’t be “forced” to attack people who present no threat to us, or are surrendering, or are defenseless. If we’re violent to such people, the responsibility will lie with us. It will be our choice.
As such, whether we continue to follow the path that choice laid out will be our choice, too.
Simply because we’ve chosen to walk a destructive or otherwise negative path, doesn’t mean we can’t walk away from it. We’re not condemned to keep making the same choices if we don’t want to.
Even if we may not realize it, we always have a choice of what path to walk. If we don’t like the choices we’ve made, if we are ashamed of the choices we’ve made…we can always make different choices.
We can choose a different course of action, even if we tell ourselves otherwise. Nothing is truly “forcing” us to make decisions we don’t want to make.
Ultimately, who we want to be, as a person, in a zombie apocalypse, is our choice, too.
We will see a lot of awful things and a lot of awful behavior from a lot of people in the apocalypse. We may see a lot of true horrors, but, whether or not we emulate those horrors or those awful behaviors, comes down to whether we choose to do so.
Either we can let those things change us, or we can choose to be good people, in spite of all the horrible things we’ll see.
Our lives are defined by our choices. What will you choose?
Next: The Walking Dead: Why do the good always die?
And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it will help you should you ever need it and give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.
If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!